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When Saas Attacks

Chad — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:50:15 +0000

So I work for a Software as a Service company, and the product I support is designed to contact users by phone, email, SMS, fax, etc., in the event of an emergency or disaster. It is very, very powerful. So a guy gets a genius idea, as an April Fool’s Joke, to have the system repeatedly call a colleague with several silly messages. The problem was that he didn’t know when enough was enough, and didn’t understand the system. He accidentally set it up to recur, which meant the message went out over and over. He also didn’t understand how to stop the recurrence, so he couldn’t cancel it.

Moral of the story: If you’re going to play an April Fool’s Joke, make sure you understand what you’re doing, otherwise an entire company may be laughing at you while your boss is screaming at you for misuse of a very expensive notification system.

I’m Not.

Chad — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 14:41:21 +0000

At a company meeting yesterday, the new VP of Marketing said that magic phrase that never fails to rile me up: “Everyone is in marketing.” This phrase somehow disables the tact and teamwork sections of my brain and makes me spit vitriol such as, “Really? If that’s the case, why do we need a marketing department? Seems to me you guys are just wasted expenditures if I’m doing your job AND mine…”

But I’ll refrain from that rant. I know he meant it as a compliment, as if I, too, were intelligent enough to be in marketing. I find it odd that the VP of Engineering at any company I’ve ever worked for never stood up in front of the company and told everyone, “We are all software developers. In everything you do, and in every conversation you have with friends or clients, be thinking about how we can make our code more efficient.”

Of course he didn’t. Because it’s stupid to say that. Don’t get me wrong, I think marketing is a crucial department to have at any company, and their function is vital to any organization’s well-being… But so is mine. Working together and using our disparate skill sets is what will make us successful, not you telling me that I can do my job and somehow find time for yours, as well. Telling me that I’m in Marketing tells me, really, that you have no idea what it is I do and how it affects your paycheck. Buy a clue.

New York. Rinse. Repeat.

Chad — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:56:25 +0000

Colleen and I went to New York last week. I went for a client, and she went cause I found a great deal on airfare. It was lots of fun. While we were in transit on Friday, however, another customer had some issues and they decided to send me out there for a day.

The new client was in Manhattan. If I look at Google Earth and measure the distance from us to Manhattan, it’s roughly 1500 miles. I made that trip three times in a 34 hour period, meaning I averaged over 132 mph the whole time. Tired. More New York blogs to come…

An End to the Joy of Laziness

Chad — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:03:28 +0000

So, we bring to a close another run of joyful paid unworkable days, as Austin opens her bleary eyes and shakes the ice off. True to the American Dream, no one could make it to work during the ice storm, and yet many people were out shopping yesterday afternoon. I’m actually glad to be back at work, as I have important business to take care of this week.
Wow, these two day work weeks are KILLING me…

I’m sorry, WHAT?!

Chad — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 14:44:18 +0000

Yesterday I was on the phone with a client to determine dates for a course they wanted us to teach. They are notorious for going down random rat-holes that have little, if anything, to do with the subject matter at hand. During the discussion of the roll-out, they suddenly took issue with the name of the product we would train their users on. To simplify and to avoid naming names, let’s pretend I work for McDonald’s. If I had, the conversation would have gone a little something like this:

Customer: Yeah, calling it the McRib is just confusing. Our users won’t know what that is. Can’t we just call it a Big Mac?

Us: Well, no, because it’s really a different sandwich altogether.

Customer: Well, our users will get really confused. Let’s just call it the Big Mac.

Us: Again, we can’t really do that — it’s a totally different sandwich. One is pork, the other is beef.

Customer: But our users don’t know that, and it’s just too confusing. If we can’t call it the Big Mac, can we call it the McBurgerator?

Us: Well, it’s not really a burger, and it already has a name.

Customer: Is there anything hard-coded into this “McRib” that keeps us from calling it the McBurgerator?

Us: Um, yes… We’d have to change all our documentation to reflect the change. We have other customers who purchase the McRib, and if you refer to it by a different name when you order, our cashiers won’t know what you’re talking about.

Customer: What if we compromised and called it the Rib McBurger-like Sandwich?

(and on… and on… and on…)

Who are these people? Why do they think they can do this?